ERIC Number: EJ964642
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-May
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0311-6999
EISSN: N/A
Inclusive Education for Students with Refugee Experience: Whole School Reform in a South Australian Primary School
Pugh, Karen; Every, Danielle; Hattam, Robert
Australian Educational Researcher, v39 n2 p125-141 May 2012
In recent years, there has been an increase in students with refugee experience in the UK, the US, Europe and Australia. These students face many barriers to education, and appropriately educating this diverse student population presents many challenges to schools and education departments. We argue that a whole of school approach that includes school structures, culture and pedagogy is needed to provide equity for students with refugee experience. This approach to reform requires that the "structures and programs [that] are designed for a dominant group" (DETE, South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework, South Australia 2001), and which disadvantage minority groups, are challenged and changed. Implementing such change raises many practical difficulties, and there are few documented examples of good practice. This prompted the authors' ethnographic study of a South Australian primary school, with a New Arrivals Program, which positions itself as taking a whole of school approach to educational reform for refugees. This paper reports on the structural changes the school has implemented in its class organisation, staff roles and curriculum. We consider the effects of government funding and neoliberal education policy on these reforms.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Inclusion, Refugees, Elementary School Students, Educational Change, Elementary Schools, Ethnography, Class Organization, Staff Role, Elementary School Curriculum, Financial Support, Government School Relationship, Neoliberalism, Educational Policy
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A